It was late in April of 1979, when a poor, lone­ly and sad­dened man sat in his lit­tle, wood­en gallery in St Croix Road, Princes Town. Al­most in tears and fail­ing sight, he re­called the 45-year pi­o­neer­ing strug­gle in the mak­ing and per­fect­ing of the dou­bles, a na­tion­al food. He was known as Singh, the dou­bles man, one of the sev­er­al pi­o­neers in Princes Town.
Singh grew up in a lit­tle bar­rack room in Trans­port, Princes Town. He be­came ac­quaint­ed with Chote, Dean and As­ga Ali of Fair­field Sug­ar Cane Es­tate in Craig­nish, who were al­so pi­o­neer mak­ers and ven­dors of bar­ra and chut­ney, kur­ma, pholourie, chan­na and oth­er In­di­an del­i­ca­cies. Chote re­lat­ed how he ac­quired his art from his in­den­tured grand­fa­ther in the bar­rack at the Mal­gretoute Cane Es­tate.
Singh agreed that he learned a few things about mak­ing and sell­ing some of those del­i­ca­cies from his as­so­ciates. As a young man, he de­cid­ed to go in­to busi­ness, and so, he filled his bas­ket and set up at the Princes Town Tri­an­gle to of­fer his del­i­ca­cies. Hope­ful­ly, and in good spir­its, he shout­ed, "Get yuh bar­rah and chut­ney! Chan­nah! Chan­nah! Chan­nah! Wet (cur­ried) chan­nah o’ dry (fried) chan­nah!"
As he con­tin­ued his sell­ing at the Tri­an­gle one day, an aged woman named Doo Doo Dar­lin tast­ed his bar­ra and chut­ney. She sucked her teeth in pity and shak­ing her head, "No!" she told Singh,"Yuh cyah mek bar­rah yet mih son. De edge ah de bar­rah too hard. Dorg self cyah eat dat." The fol­low­ing day, the woman went to Singh’s bar­rack, and with great care, she taught him the cor­rect method of mak­ing what she con­sid­ered to be good orig­i­nal bar­ra. From then, there was no turn­ing back for Singh. When the roost­er crew at four o’clock, dawn, Singh and his wife, Sookya, were up and prepar­ing the del­i­ca­cies for the day’s sale. Af­ter much labour and sac­ri­fice, Singh and Sookya had saved enough mon­ey to pur­chase a freight bi­cy­cle. It was then that he was able to move with much ease and to of­fer his ed­i­bles to a wider mar­ket
He had the grit and de­ter­mi­na­tion to sell and so, he fo­cused on be­ing an it­er­ant bar­ra man. He jour­neyed to neigh­bour­ing vil­lages on spe­cial func­tions and fes­ti­vals. He cy­cled to Cedar Hill dai­ly dur­ing the Ram­leela Fes­ti­val, to near­by Craig­nish dur­ing Hosay (Ho­sein) cel­e­bra­tion. He jour­neyed many miles to Bar­rack­pore, Debe and Pe­nal dur­ing the Phag­wa fes­ti­vals, al­so at Union Park in Mara­bel­la dur­ing the grand East­er horse rac­ing events. The tire­less bar­ra man Singh sold his prod­ucts to vil­lagers at the Willians­ville Rail­way Sta­tion, when horse-drawn bug­gies plied for hire to White­lands, Mayo and Guaracara vil­lages.
Comb­ing his fin­gers though his short, grey hair, a smile played on his lips. Singh, with a mea­sure of laugh in his voice, re­called, "Boy, some­time dur­ing the World war 11 in 1940, dey had big cock fight in Re­be­ca-Rich­mond Road, near Tabaquite down so. Ah pack up mih bike wid cur­ry chan­nah, bar­rah and hot man­go chut­ney and Ah ride off soon morn­ing un­til ah reach. Boy dat was pres­sure. Well, ah push dong mih bike trough de bush track right dong to de gayelle. Boy dat was cock fight foh so! All kin­da bigshot man in de bam­boo patch and dey game-cock fight­in’ an’ mon­ey on­ly fly­in’ as dey drinkin’ moun­tain dew like wa­ter. Well, ah sell­in’ mih stuff good, good, when ah man bawl out, 'Po­lice! Po­lice!' Boy! Man run­nin’ like ‘gouti through de bush. I run an hide in de bush too. A! A! When ah come back to mih bike all mih bar­rah an’ chut­ney gorn. Mih chan­nah tin emp­ty! Like dorg lick it!" At that point his voice dipped in­to a sob­bing tremor, his eyes turned moi­sed as he looked down to the floor. He choked, "On­ly Gawd know how..."
From that ex­cit­ing day, Singh dis­con­tin­ued his sales trip to cock fight­ing gayelles and whey whey turfs. He set­tled back to the Princes Town Tri­an­gle, and some­times at the Fair­field Junc­tion in Craig­nish, along­side Chote and Dean.
As the World War con­tin­ued, the bar­ra busi­ness suf­fered from short­ages of re­lat­ed in­gre­di­ents in­clud­ing flour and cook­ing oil. Singh heard of a Chi­nese shop­keep­er in Ma­yaro, who had a hoard of cook­ing oil. Ear­ly one morn­ing, he rode off on his freight bi­cy­cle to that des­ti­na­tion, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 36 miles plus, to the Chi­nese shop, where he bought a four-gal­lon tin of the cook­ing oil, and rode back to his bar­rack in Princes Town. Many times af­ter, he trav­elled by the TGR (Trinidad Gov­ern­ment Rail­ways) bus to ob­tain his sup­ply.
When the war end­ed in 1945, Singh sighed in re­lief, and with re­newed hope and de­ter­mi­na­tion, he sought new mar­ket­ing out­lets in the Bor­ough of San Fer­nan­do sev­en miles away. He stag­gered his vend­ing from the Na­pari­ma Boys' Col­lege on Par­adise Hill to St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, now known as Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege on Cof­fee Street. At al­ter­nate times, he sold at the mar­ket and on the King’s Wharf.
In those far-off days, he ex­plained that the bar­ra was sold with a daub of pep­pery chut­ney. The cur­ried chan­na—some­times called wet or soft chan­na—was sep­a­rate­ly sold. One day, while sell­ing near a well-known au­to garage on the wharf, a reg­u­lar work­er from the garage came to buy. He or­dered that Singh put a spread of the cur­ried chan­na on the bar­ra. So pleased was the cus­tomer with the com­bi­na­tion, that the fol­low­ing day, he or­dered, " 'Singh, boy, put some cur­ried chan­na on ah bar­ra and cov­er it wid an­od­der bar­ra to make like ah sand­wich.' " Singh said, "Oho! So,yuh want it dou­ble!" The sat­is­fied cus­tomer re­turned to or­der, "Aye! Singh, dat 'dou­ble' eatin’ good boy! bring ah ‘dou­ble’ dey foh mih, an put de pep­per chut­ney too." Sub­se­quent to those days, when­ev­er the man came to buy, Singh would ask, "So yuh come foh an­od­der dou­ble?" Oth­er cus­tomers ob­served, tast­ed, and were de­light­ed and sat­is­fied at the unique com­bi­na­tion. Voic­es were call­ing for more, "Can I have two dou­bles please?" And the or­ders went around; it was the ori­gin of the name 'dou­bles.'
Al­though the ba­sic art of mak­ing the del­i­ca­cies was hand­ed down from our in­den­tured fore-par­ents from In­dia, it is known that cer­tain changes were made as of ne­ces­si­ty or as a cre­ative ad­just­ment to­ward a bet­ter flavour.
The com­po­si­tion of the in­gre­di­ents was al­tered, mak­ing it an in­dige­nous food form.
Ms As­gar Ali, Chote, Dean and Singh re­main the pi­o­neers of the dou­bles. Those men and their de­vot­ed wives had sac­ri­ficed and con­tributed to a na­tion­al fast food; those who had cleared the way to­ward self-em­ploy­ment of all dou­bles ven­dors; those who had giv­en us a sim­ple meal, which is af­ford­able and nu­tri­tious. The fa­mous Ali Dou­bles chain emerged from those in­den­tured roots, as well as all dou­bles ven­dors across our is­land and To­ba­go.
It is re­gret­table that those men and their de­vot­ed wives were not recog­nised and ap­plaud­ed for their laud­able con­tri­bu­tion to the culi­nary art. Princes Town, the birth and home of the mighty dou­bles, that old freight bi­cy­cle with the dou­bles box should be the sym­bol and a tan­gi­ble his­toric item to be pre­served and dis­played on a pedestal with the names of the pi­o­neers etched in a plaque with a brief his­to­ry. The peo­ple of Princes Town must keep their his­to­ry and cul­tur­al her­itage alive; you are a part of a no­ble town with a rich and en­dur­ing his­to­ry—cel­e­brate the pi­o­neers, your her­itage, your his­to­ry—The home of the dou­bles.
Source: Al Ramsawack, Trinidad Guardian, October 2019

George Arthur Roberts, born in 1890.
Leaving Trinidad, he arrives in London at the outbreak of WW1, joins up and gets nicknamed "the coconut bomber" supposedly due to his ability of throwing bombs behind enemy lines, 74 feet no less !!!!
He sustained injuries from both the Battle of Loos and the Somme. After WW1, George fell in love, settled in Lewis Rd Camberwell, got married to Margaret in 1920 and had two children.
When WW2 began, he joined the fire service, working from New Cross Fire Station and saving countless lives during the Blitz, he was awarded the British Empire Medal. Last year there was an online vote for people to nominate who they thought deserved a blue plaque on their home and this week, George was declared the winner. So there you have it, George was not only one of the first black men to join the British Army, but was also one of the first to join the fire service.
Much respect for you Sir
Source:  Ancre Somme Association Scotland

Chinese immigration to Trinidad occurred in four waves. The first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in Trinidad on 12th October 1806 on the ship Fortitude. Of the 200 passengers who set sail, 192 arrived. They came, not from mainland China, but from Macao, Penang and Canton. This first attempt at Chinese immigration was an experiment intended to set up a settlement of peasant farmers and labourers. The objectives of this experiment were to populate the newly acquired British colony (Trinidad), and more importantly, find a new labour source to replace the African slaves who would no longer be available once slavery and the slave trade were abolished. It was felt that the Chinese immigrants could work on the sugar estates.
Upon arrival, the majority of the immigrants were sent to the sugar plantations. The rest were sent to Cocorite where they lived as a community of artisans and peasant farmers. Living conditions there were awful. Very few of the immigrants stayed on the estates for long. Many of those who decided to stay in Trinidad became butchers, shopkeepers, carpenters and market gardeners. The rest returned to China on the Fortitude. Of the 192 immigrants only 23 opted to stay in Trinidad. The experiment was considered a failure and was never repeated.
The second wave of Chinese immigration took place after the abolition of slavery. Most of the immigrants came from the southern Guangdong province: an area comprising Macao, Hong Kong and Canton. The immigrants arrived in Trinidad as indentured labourers between 1853 and 1866. It was normal for the Chinese to migrate in large numbers to countries in South East Asia, but the period 1853 to 1866 saw them migrating on a global scale to countries such as Australia, Canada, the United States and the Caribbean.
Trinidad received a small portion of this vast movement. Those who came here included both indentured labourers and free Chinese who migrated voluntarily. The indentured labourers were assigned to work on the estates, and their terms and conditions of employment were the same as those given to the Indian indentured labourers. The Chinese indentureship programme came to an end in 1866 because the Chinese government insisted on a free return passage for the labourers. The British government, which had organised the indentureship programme, felt that this was too costly, and ended the programme.
The third wave of Chinese migration began after 1911 and was a direct result of the Chinese revolution. Between 1920s and 1940s immigration increased significantly. These new immigrants comprised families and friends of earlier migrants. They did not work on the estates but came as merchants, peddlers, traders and shopkeepers.
In addition to the immigrants from China there were also immigrants from other parts of the Caribbean region - mainly Guyana. These were Chinese who had originally served their indentureship on the mainland. Once their period of indentureship was finished they migrated to Trinidad to seek better opportunities.
Migration ceased completely during the period of the Chinese Revolution. However, during the late 1970s when China started opening up to the outside world, migration resumed once more. This was the fourth wave and continues on a small scale up to today.
LIST OF VESSELS ARRIVING IN TRINIDAD WITH CHINESE IMMIGRANTS, 1806-1866

• Fortitude - 12 October 1806
• Australia - March 1853
• Clarendon - 23 April 1853
• Lady Flora Hastings - 28 June 1853
• Maggie Miller/Wanata - 3 July 1862
• Montrose - 18 February 1865
• Paria - 25 May 1865
• Dudbrook - 12 February 1866
• Red Riding Hood - 24 February 186

Source:  National Library and Information System Authority of Trinidad and Tobago 

Author : Angelo Bissessarsingh
Land tortoises (Testudo tabulate), locally known as morocoys once abounded in Trinidad. Not to be confused with the more common red-eared terrapin or ‘galap’ (Trachemys scripta elegans), Morocoys are wholly terrestrial and generally occurred in areas with dry scrubland and deciduous forest. The Amerindian tribes of the North, being descended from Kalinago or Island Carib peoples despised turtle meat as they believed it made one slow and sluggish. In the south however, the Arawakan speaking peoples did consume the morocoy since bones and carapaces (shells) have been discovered in their middens, albeit in small numbers, at Cedros and Erin. The village of Tortuga in the Montserrat Hills was so named because of the large numbers of these animals which could be found there. The real danger to these placid reptiles however, came in the wake of the influx of French settlers who began to arrive in the island after the Cedula of Population in 1783. As would be typical of the gourmands of Bordeaux and the Loire Valley, these new immigrants soon found ways of preparing local game and fish to their tastes. The tables of the French Creoles were set with local meats that were treated to the flair of their Gallic heritage. In this way, many species were almost exterminated. The large pigeon known as the Ramier was an early victim and in one description of a dinner given in the 1850s at Cedros, the wooden trestle table was graced with a small mountain of roasted Ramiers, intended to represent a mud volcano on the estate.
Salmi of Morocoy liver was a runaway favourite since the animals could be easily caught and fattened on choice fruits for a banquet. The salmi was prepared by lightly braising the liver of the slaughtered morocoy in a pan allowing the fat content to be removed, and then stewing it in a consommé made from Spanish wine, cayenne pepper, ginger and thyme which was prepared separately and poured hot over the fried liver which being deprived of its fat content, would absorb the essences of the broth. Salmi of Morocoy liver was of widespread popularity, and resulted in the decimation of the species locally. In order to sate the appetites of the French Creoles, traders imported turtles from Venezuela where they were plentiful and sold them live in local markets. As recently as the 1920s, this famous dish was being served on fine china in the best homes across the island where at least on the East Coast (Manzanilla-Mayaro) , potted manatee brains on toast was also an entrée. The following is an account of the morocoy written in 1882:

“Numerous as reptiles are in Trinidad, a few only will be mentioned as deserving notice, either on account of their utility, or of their venomous characteristics. The morocoy and galapa live on soft plants, fruits, and insects ; the morocoy seems to be particularly partial to the wild-plum, which it swallows entire; during the ripening season, several of them may be met with under one tree. Being very slow in their movements, the morocoy and galapa are easily caught ; if near a pond or river, however, the galapa at once dives and escapes under water. Dogs often detect the morocoy by barking at it ; also when coupling, they emit a peculiar grunt which likewise serves to discover them. Besides the (sea) turtle, both the land and fresh-water tortoises are eaten, and when in good season and condition are not to be despised ; the liver of the morocoy is as delicate, or even much richer and choicer than the fuie gras ; it requires the condiments of lime juice, salt, and pepper, and must be dressed in the frying-pan. Morocoys are sometimes kept in pens, and fattened upon ripe plantains, guavas, &c., for the table. By far the greater number of sea and land tortoises exposed for sale in our markets, come from the Main.”
Weekend excursions down the islands which were the pleasure of the upper classes of Port of Spain also caused some inroads on the turtle population. Refrigeration had not yet come to the resort homes on Monos and Gasparee in the 19th century so most food had to be taken alive, such as chickens and turkeys. More often than not, a land tortoise kicking helplessly while lying on its back went along for the ride as well. Though the days of the salmis have passed, this slow reptile’ population is yet to recover to a level anywhere near what it was a couple centuries ago.

The multicultural society of Trinidad and Tobago is made up of numerous different ethnic groups.
The contributions of the Chinese community have made numerable impressions on the lives of all Trinbagonians, from food to Double Ten celebrations. 
Here are five well-known Chinese people who have contributed to T&T’s culture and society:

Sir Solomon Hochoy was born on 20 April 1905 in Jamaica, and arrived in Trinidad at the age of two. He grew up in the village of Blanchisseuse and attended St. Mary's College from 1917 to 1922.
In 1927, he began his distinguished career in the Civil Service. He served in various posts, and quickly worked his way up the organizational ladder. Upon attainment of Independence in 1962, he became the Governor-General until 1972.

A renowned artist, Carlisle Chang’s work is memorialized in the Coat of Arms and national flag of Trinidad and Tobago.
Known as the ‘Father of Art’ in T&T, Chang’s work was prolific and boundary-breaking.  He also served as President of the Art Society of Trinidad and Tobago (1984-89). Chang received many awards, including the national honour of the Hummingbird Award in 1964.

Dr Joseph Lennox Pawan was a Trinidadian bacteriologist who was the first person to show that rabies could be spread by vampire bats to other animals and humans.
Dr Pawan attended St. Mary’s College, Port of Spain, and later studied medicine at Edinburgh University.
In 1929, after an outbreak of rabies among cattle, humans began contracting the disease. Dr Pawan found the first infected vampire bat in March 1932 and proved that various species of bat are capable of transmitting rabies for an extended period of time.
In the King's Birthday Honours (1934), Pawan was appointed as a member of the Order of the British Empire for his ground-breaking discovery. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) also posthumously named him a "Hero in Health" in 2002.

Dai Ailian, born in T&T, was a Chinese dancer and an important figure in the modern history of dance in China. Her years as a dance teacher and educator helped China build a generation of dancers, choreographers, and educators. She is known in China as the "Mother of Chinese Modern Dance".
She was co-founder of the National Ballet of China and the Beijing Dance Academy. She’s also said to have been the first person to bring western ballet to China in the 1940s.
Do you also have Chinese heritage? Source: The Loop, October 2016